Nothing New Under the Sun
The Romans used movable types to mark their pottery and indorse their books. Mr. Layard found, in Nineveh, a magnificent lens of rock-crystal, which Sir D. Brewster considers a true optical lens, and the origin of the microscope. The principle of the stereoscope, invented by Professor Wheatstone, was known to Euclid, described by Galen fifteen hundred years ago, and more fully in 1599, A. D., in the works of Baptista Porta. The Thames tunnel, though such a novelty, was anticipated by that under the Euphrates at Babylon, and the ancient Egyptians had a Suez canal. Such examples might be indefinitely multiplied; but we turn to Photography. M. Jobarb, in his “Neuvelles Inventions aux Expositions Universelles,” 1856, says a translation from German was discovered in Russia, three hundred years old, which contains a clear explanation of Photography. The old alchemists understood the properties of chloride of silver in relation to light, and its photographic action is explained by Fabricius in “De Rubus Metallicis,” 1566. The daguerreotype process was anticipated by De La Roche, in his “Giphantie,” 1760, though it was only the statement of a dreamer.